Donate

Support us by donating :)

Your ad here?

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Review: Seven Spires - Solveig

Formed back in 2013, Boston-based symphonic metallers Seven Spires have toiled through the trenches cultivating an utterly rabid fanbase for their use of more extreme vocal stylings alongside the traditional classical opera-style vocals for the genre. After several early releases for the band, their full-length two-act debut album is released August 4, 2017 on SOAL.

Attempting to explore their own unique take, the group brings about a rather familiar yet still strikingly original take on the symphonic metal movement. On the surface, efforts like “Encounter,” “Choices” and “Stay” feature rather prominent chugging riff patterns, plenty of swirling melodic hooks from the dynamic keyboard-work and plenty of furious double-kick drum-beats that are all part and parcel to the format at play. Bringing along tight speed-metal patterns in the riffing gives them a sense of liveliness and energy, especially compared to the mid-tempo work elsewhere throughout efforts like “The Cabaret of Dreams,” “Closure” or “Serenity” which forsake the more metallic elements of their sound for operatic passages and plenty of strong vocal work in that regard. That does separate this one somewhat from most other efforts in the style with the ability to switch between soft soprano vocals and soaring operatic wails yet still able to maintain their deeper growls which pop up sporadically. Overall, there’s not much to dislike here unless you count the exhaustive running time with this one really lasting quite beyond what it should as there are way too many tracks here. Some of the weaker efforts in the second half could’ve easily been trimmed down and the interludes could’ve been eliminated altogether so this one doesn’t feel like a drag to get through which is the case here even though thankfully the tracks don’t really drag all that much. It’s the only aspect keeping this one down.

For a debut offering, this is clearly a strong and rather fun offering that only has some rather slight learning curves that can easily be ironed out in the future which makes this a rather promising act to look into for all fans of melodic female-fronted metal or those looking to expand their symphonic metal collections. 8.5/10